Sword of Gryffindor
by LJL
Summary: COMPLETE - Harry Potter, now a vampire with a soul, wanders America, searching for purpose in his now pitiful existence. MAJOR angsty stuff here. Sequel to Slayers and Sixth Years.
1. PART ONE, Chapter 1: Thesis

I had said that I wasn't going to write a sequel to SASY. I lied. Here it is! Yay!  
  
Part 1 - Blowing in the Wind  
  
Harry Potter sat in the forest, shielded by trees, and watched the fire crackling before him. The flames danced in intricate patterns, so complex that Harry could almost see shapes forming in them.  
He saw the face of Lord Voldemort, dying at the bottom of a lake.  
He saw the form of a young man, torn between evil and good, unsure of whether he was fighting for good or simply for the sake of fighting.  
He saw Ginny Weasley's beautiful, smiling face...  
He would never see that face again...  
Harry shifted, and the Sword of Gryffindor shifted with him. He remembered, suddenly, the last confrontation he'd had with Dumbledore before finally being allowed to leave Hogwarts. How Dumbledore had insisted that Harry still had a role to play. How the old, exhausted man had somehow given the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry without Harry's noticing.  
Why, exactly, he had been given the Sword was anyone's guess. Dumbledore hadn't stopped to even scribble a note for Harry. He had left Harry completely in the dark - but then, what else was new?  
Harry watched the horizon with a sense of tension. The sun would be coming up soon. As a vampire, Harry had a distinct knowledge of the patterns of the sun.  
Some things were new.  
  
By the time the sun rose, Harry was sheltered inside a hollow of an enormous tree. The hollow itself was at least ten feet by ten feet - perhaps not a very comfortable fit, but a fit all the same. It would do.  
Harry was hungry. Hunger for a vampire, he'd discovered, was worse than hunger for a human. He felt awful cravings for the blood of still-living victims. But he wouldn't do it. A spell had been performed to give Harry back his human soul, and that soul kept him from killing people.  
"It's almost a pity..." he muttered to himself. Life would have been so much simpler without the damned soul.  
Harry's journey was progressing excellently, if you took into consideration the amount of ground he was covering and neglected to include in your assessment his complete lack of a destination. He didn't have a map or anything, but Harry suspected that he'd covered at least two hundred miles in the week he'd been gone from Hogwarts. The school was firmly in his past.  
Harry settled into his tree trunk, feeling not comfort, but instead a resigned relaxation. The soulful part of him was fine with a little peace and quiet. His vampiric side, however, craved carnage and destruction. It wasn't easy to reign in those tendencies.  
Harry wanted to sleep. But he didn't sleep anymore. He simply existed.  
  
When night finally fell, Harry pushed his way out of the tree trunk and began traveling anew. He didn't have a clue where he was going - all he did know was that Britain wasn't a terribly huge island, and that he would eventually reach the coast if he just kept walking. And coast meant boats...boats meant being elsewhere...  
Perhaps then he could really leave everything behind.  
As he walked through the forest, Harry kept his senses sharp. This part of Britain was known for its demons. Known for its demons to those who know of the existence of demons, that is.  
Harry had only been attacked once since his departure from Hogwarts, and the two Thesulac demons were currently a bloody pulp sticking to several different trees. If any other demons had been watching the altercation, Harry doubted that he'd be given any more trouble.  
He'd thought wrong. As he moved, he became distinctly aware of a second set of feet moving in tandem with his own. Harry slowed a bit, making sure not to alert his new enemy to the fact that he'd heard him.  
Harry walked on like that, monitoring the footsteps of his stalker to make sure the thing didn't get too close or too far away, and he searched for a good place to fight. He wasn't sure how long the thing was going to avoid him, so he searched quickly, finally settling for an area where the trees thinned a bit.  
As Harry entered it, the canopy of tree's parted a bit, showing to Harry for the first time that night the sky. He stopped, looking up at it. The footsteps following him also stopped.  
"Whatever you are, you don't want to fight me," he warned. Harry lowered his gaze and searched idly for the creature. Unsurprisingly, he couldn't see it, but that didn't make a difference. He was confident that he could fight it.  
Slowly, a large creature emerged from the darkness cast by the trees. It was about six feet tall, and was covered in shaggy brown hair. Harry gave it a look devoid of emotion.  
"I am not your dinner," he said. "Go away and I won't kill you."  
The beast snarled and advanced towards Harry. Harry sighed. This wouldn't take long, but it still annoyed him to no end. He had to take a little bit of time out of eternity to end this creature's pitiful existence, just to get back to his own pitiful existence.  
The beast charged Harry, swinging its powerful upper arms at him. Harry ducked under the swing, and the creature's clawed paws traveled on, ripping an enormous chunk out of a nearby tree. The creature recovered faster than Harry had anticipated and swung again, downward at where Harry crouched.  
This time, the creature scored a hit, sending Harry flying into another small tree. Dazed, Harry slowly climbed to his feet, searching his blurry vision for the creature. He couldn't let it do that again.  
He was completely unable to see the thing. It had disappeared. Harry searched in futility for a moment, then remembered how to find the thing. He shut his eyes and listened.  
After a moment of silence, Harry heard a faint noise that was the creature breathing. Harry vamped out and leapt, catching the hidden creature completely by surprise. Harry knocked it quickly to the ground, pinning its enormous arms with his own. He felt the power of the creature. It was strong. He was stronger.  
In a deft movement that was faster than the human eye could track, Harry with drew his hands from the creature's arms and twisted its head violently. Harry must have really been annoyed by the creature, for instead of just snapping its neck, its head was ripped from its body, causing an explosion of gore over the ground.  
Harry didn't pant. He didn't sweat. His expression never changed once. As he climbed to his feet, he licked a bit of the creature's blood off his hand. "Hmmm," he said, to himself. "Tasty."  
  
Harry Potter's trek away from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry took him west, towards the Celtic Sea. He reached the sea a half week after his encounter with the shaggy haired beast, which, by the way, had made an excellent meal. He hadn't been troubled after the incident; the smell of the dead brute was all over him.  
Upon reaching the sea, Harry found himself in a small port town called Mezl.  
  
Harry walked into the small town, and was immediately aware of two things; one, that the town he'd entered wouldn't have existed without the port, and two, that the town's population was well under a thousand.  
It was perfect.  
When night fell, Harry got out from the alley he'd used as cover for the day and headed for the wharf. With any luck, one of the two dozen or so ships in the port would be heading out of Britain soon.  
The wharf was deserted, which caught Harry half by surprise. He surveyed the scene before him and decided that one of the wharf houses was his best bet.  
Harry entered the first convenient one without knocking. The small cabin was lit with candles. On the end of a desk that blocked off half the room and another doorway lay a bell. Harry rang it.  
He waited a moment. Then another. Finally, a man came through the door in the back. He held a cross before him.  
"Back, you!" he yelled, lunging with the cross. Harry batted the man's hand away, missing the cross, luckily.  
The man looked at his fallen cross, then back at Harry. "It shoulda scared you," he said, in a fairly thick Cockney accent. "It shoulda burned yeh, too. Well, I guess you aren't a vampire."  
Harry silently thanked his resilience.  
"What can I do for yeh?" the man asked, obviously more disposed towards Harry know.  
Harry decided to play dumb. "What was that all about?"  
"Never mind, kid," the man said. "It's not yer problem."  
Discarding dumb, Harry went for the gist. "If you're having a vampire problem here, I'd be more than happy to help you out."  
The man laughed outright. "What would you do?" he asked.  
"Deal with it," Harry said. "Do you want my help or not?"  
The man considered Harry for a moment. He shook his head, after a time. "It's none of yer business," he said.  
"Suit yourself," Harry said, emotionless. "I'm looking for a way out of this country, preferably tonight."  
"I've got a boat leaving for America in about two hours," the man said. "Its no pleasure cruiser, but it'll get you there."  
"How much do I owe you?" Harry asked, beginning to reach back for the small amount of gold he'd brought from Hogwarts.  
"Nothing, kid," the man said. "You made me laugh, which hasn't happened in a while."  
Indifferent, Harry withdrew the hand from his back pocket. "I'll just wait outside," Harry said.  
"Deal with our vampires, wait outside..." the man trailed off as he walked back through his doorway. In the brief moment that the door was open, Harry saw a bed in the next room. He wouldn't have been able to enter it. These people obviously had a serious problem with vampires.  
Oh, well.  
He'd offered them help, and they'd refused. Well, one person had refused, but the rest would be just like him. Harry left the cabin and walked down onto the grass of the inner wharf. There he sat and waited.  
Two hours later, a group of armed men came hurrying towards him. "You the kid we're taking to America?" one of them asked.  
"That's me," Harry replied. "Why do you have an arsenal with you?"  
"Can't be too careful," one of the sailors said. "Come on, the boat's this way. The Salau. You'll love her."  
"Doubtful," Harry muttered, but to himself.  
  
Two weeks later, the Salau entered the American port city of New York. The little boat was caught transporting contraband into America around Ellis Island. Unbeknownst to the American officials, a young man slipped over the railing as the ship was being boarded.  
  
Harry first set foot on American soil as, not only a vampire, but a waterlogged vampire. The city of New York lay before him.  
Harry decided to stake out some sleeping space for himself first, then find a butcher to purchase dinner.  
However, Harry quickly discovered that lacking money was a serious problem in finding anywhere to stay in New York. Eventually, he gave up on the hotels and decided to stay in an alley.  
It couldn't be much worse than the cramped contraband ship, right?  
Harry Potter settled in for a cold night, a cold being himself. The temperature outside didn't bother him in the slightest; the cold was a part of him as much, if not more, than the soul that still caused a dull ache in his chest.  
  
I said I wasn't going to do a sequel to SASY...I lied...can you forgive me? Hopefully, you will, since I think that this story, and the next two (AWA, prequel to SASY, and Hell Soul, sequel to Sword of Gryffindor) are going to kick some serious ass. Peace out children. Remember to leave your reviews for the poor humble author. 


	2. PART ONE, Chapter 2: Kindred

Here we are with chapter two! This story is separated by two things: Parts and chapters. Parts will be several chapters long, and are pretty much the theme of the story. You'll get all that later, I promise.  
  
Harry rested for a few hours, and around midnight, rose. He was hungry. He was getting to that point where hunger was all he would think about.  
New York City, the city that never sleeps, was bustling with activity. In some recess of Harry's brain, where a human child still lived, he was amazed at the never ending traffic and commotion.  
Harry wandered out of his alley and began to search out a butcher. He'd considered eating a fat rat in the alley, but had decided against it for the time being. Perhaps there was some pride left in him after all.  
Harry had no luck finding a butcher, at first. He began asking random people, but they all ignored him. He started to get annoyed.  
"Come on! Tell me where I can find a butcher, damn you!" he yelled at a woman. The woman walked by, barely even taking notice. Harry growled, and started after her. He was about to grab her when he stopped.  
What...?  
Harry shook his head. He had almost vamped out on her. He checked himself over. Okay. He was all set. He wasn't going to kill anyone. He was going to find a butcher, and he was going to get some dinner, and he wasn't going to kill anyone...  
There were so many of them...surely no one would notice if just one went missing...  
Harry threw himself into an alley. He wasn't prepared for this. Seeing so many people...it was getting to him. He needed to kill something. Suddenly, just like that, he needed a fight, badly. The vampire in him needed to be satiated.  
Harry staggered down the alley. He came out the other side, saw headlights, and then saw no more.  
  
Lawrence Fisher had never hit anyone or anything in his car. He'd had a perfect record until that night. Luckily, the street was relatively out of the way, and no one saw it happen. Lawrence got out, inspected the unconscious young man, and decided to bring him back to the veterinary clinic which he helped run. The young man would be out for another few hours. He was sure of that.  
  
Harry awoke with a dull throb in his head and shoulder. He sat slowly, and opened his eyes slower.  
His mind returned to him quickly after that. He remembered the sudden blood lust. He should have realized that so many humans would have set him off.  
So many things he should have realized!  
Harry didn't let himself get distracted by that familiar train of thought. It wouldn't pay to. For now, he had to discover his location, and find a way out. The lights were really bugging him.  
Harry got off of what turned out to be an examination table. He looked around. Beside the table was an aisle, lined with cages. In the cages were animals.  
Harry went up to one of them. A Black Labrador sat inside it, a bandage rapped around one of its paws. Harry could smell the medicine in the bandage. He moved on to another cage, finding a small sparrow inside, on wing in a similar bandage.  
He realized where he was immediately. He had been taken to an animal clinic. Harry felt like laughing. There was some serious irony in that.  
Harry didn't laugh, however. A middle-aged, balding man had just come into the room and had promptly dropped his clipboard in surprise. "What...?" he said, dumbstruck. "How are you awake?"  
Harry stared at the man. He didn't say anything.  
The man bent down and picked up his clipboard. "Of course, that's a stupid question," he said. "How are you awake? Right! How are you breathing?"  
Harry was on the verge of mentioning that he wasn't breathing when he decided better of it.  
"Are you hungry?" the man asked.  
Harry's gaze shifted violently to the man's neck. "Yes," he whispered. He began to advance towards the man, who had looked down again at his clipboard.  
The man pulled out a hypodermic needle from his lab coat. "I just have to give Betsy her meds, and then I'll be heading home for supper," he said, not looking at Harry. "I think that after what happened, I owe you that."  
Harry stopped. The man looked up and smiled a him. Harry's expression didn't change, but he nodded at the man. "Sure," he said. "I'll come along."  
The man went down to sparrow's cage and opened it. "Betsy needs some special medications," the man said, making conversation as he peeled away the bandage. "That's where I was heading when I hit you."  
"You named the sparrow Betsy?" Harry asked, thinking that it was probably an American thing.  
"My daughter," the man said. "She likes to come in and 'meet' all the new animals. You know, she's sweet that way."  
"Right..." Harry said, already losing interest. He contemplated just leaving - going for dinner at this man's house would do him no good - but he felt compelled to stay. He couldn't understand the compulsion, not at first, but later he would realize that he was lonely.  
The man closed the cage up and put down the bottle next to Betsy's cage. "Well, that's it!" he said. "You ready to go?"  
"Yeah," Harry said.  
They exited the building together, the man putting on a coat. "Aren't you cold?" he asked Harry, as they walked to the man's car.  
"No," Harry said.  
"Well, you'll catch pneumonia dressed like that," the man said, eyeing Harry's short sleeved shirt and trousers.  
"Not likely," Harry said.  
They entered the man's car. As he was about to start the car, the man slapped his forehead. "I'm such a dolt!" the man said. Harry observed him calmly, waiting for the reason behind the exclamation. "I haven't introduced myself! My name is Lawrence Fisher."  
Harry regarded him in silent contemplation. It was his turn to offer a name - but what to say? Lawrence Fisher, a veterinarian, would probably have no ties to the magical world, and would therefore have no idea who Harry Potter was, but should he risk it?  
"My name is Jonathan," Harry said, finally. "Jonathan...Weasley." It was out of his mouth before he'd realized what he'd said.  
"Well, its nice to meet you, Jonathan Weasley," Fisher said. "Tell me...you're not from around here, are you?"  
That accent that Harry was so used to was going to be the end of him. "No," he admitted, for there was no way out of this one. "I'm from Britain, originally."  
"What were you doing in the middle of the road in New York City then, pray tell?" Fisher asked.  
Harry sat in silence. He didn't have a good answer to that one, either, partially because he, himself, didn't know what he was doing here.  
"That's okay," Fisher said, after a moment of silence. "We can talk at dinner."  
Harry dissented by silence.  
  
They arrived at the residence of Lawrence Fisher and family in a fairly brief amount of time. Fisher parked the car out on the street and got out.  
"It's not much..." he said, and looked at Harry.  
Harry was inclined to agree. Fisher lived in an apartment building on a long line of two-story apartment buildings. The building looked as though it should have been condemned sometime during the Renaissance.  
"Very nice," Harry managed, though he could tell that the words were flat and held no emotion.  
Fisher walked up the brief staircase and unlocked the door. He stepped across the threshold and held the door for Harry. Harry was about to step inside when he felt an unfamiliar tugging. He tried to put a foot across the threshold and found that he couldn't.  
Harry pushed harder on the unseen barrier, wondering what was going on. Fisher turned back to him, a bit of confusion on his face. "What are you waiting for? Come on in, it's freezing out there."  
At his words, Harry tumbled into the house, the barrier disappearing completely in a matter of seconds.  
Fisher looked down at Harry with a quizzical expression. "What was that all about?" he asked.  
Harry recalled something from his Defense Against the Dark Arts class then. Vampires couldn't enter a living human's home without an invitation. He found the fact to be distinctly depressing.  
"The whole building here is ours, thankfully," Fisher told Harry, as he hung up his coat in the small entrance hall. "The Ricos' next door share with the Hulls. It's a real mess."  
"I'm sure," Harry said.  
Fisher pushed open the door and walked through it out of the entrance hall and into another, longer, hallway. Harry hesitantly put his foot through this door, but found that there was no resistance this time. Good. That made life a bit easier.  
Fisher took an immediate right and entered the kitchen of this home. Inside, his wife was preparing a meal. He kissed her on the cheek. "Good evening, Dolores," he said. "What's cooking?"  
"Beef stew," she said. Then she noticed Harry. "Who's that?" she asked.  
"This is Jonathan Weasley," Fisher said.  
"It's nice to meet you," Harry said.  
"Likewise, dear," Mrs. Fisher replied. "Good thing I made too much of the stew..."  
"You always make too much of the stew," Mr. Fisher said, not unkindly. "Diana! We have a guest, so set the table for four!"  
"Gotcha!" came a young girl's voice from the next room.  
Harry settled himself back into the darkest corner he could find and attempted to be unnoticeable. His mind was beginning to wander when Diana entered.  
She couldn't have been older than fourteen. That was Harry's first impression. His second was one of slight shock; before him stood a female version of Draco Malfoy. There was something missing from that analogy, though, Harry decided, after a moment. The smug arrogance of Malfoy was nowhere to be found in this girl's innocent eyes.  
"Who's the guest, dad?" she asked. "Another guy from the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Or..." she trailed off when she caught sight of Harry. She blushed a bit. "Oh..."  
Luckily for her, neither of her parents noticed. "Is the table set, dear?" Mrs. Fisher asked.  
"Yeah," Diana said, a bit distracted.  
"Then why don't you, your father, and Jonathan go and sit down?" Mrs. Fisher asked.  
"Right..." Diana said, still attempting to pry her gaze away from Harry. She backed up, hit the wall, then turned, blushing, and walked through the door the right way. Harry pretended not to have noticed. He remembered how embarrassing it had been for Ginny when she'd...  
Harry nearly tripped. Thinking her name had sent a wave of fiery emotion through him. For the first time since meeting Mr. Fisher, Harry's face contorted in emotion.  
"Are you all right, Jonathan?" Fisher asked, seeing the look on Harry's face.  
"Yes," Harry said, breathing hard. "I'm fine."  
"Are you sure?" Mrs. Fisher asked, coming over to feel his forehead. "You look winded all of a sudden."  
"I'm okay," Harry said, pulling back before she could touch him and discover his coldness. "Really. Just remembering something."  
To prove his health, Harry walked through the door. He was about to sit down when he remembered an old family tradition of claiming seats. To avoid taking someone's seat, Harry walked to the window and looked out of it.  
"Some view, huh?" Diana asked. She seemed to have regained a bit of her composure.  
"I've seen worse," Harry said, recalling how dismal the view from his room in Privet Drive had been when bars had distorted that view.  
"Well, you won't see much better around here," Diana said. "Inner city, like this, all you see in smog and buildings. And people, of course."  
Mr. and Mrs. Fisher entered carrying the beef stew and bottle of water between them. "Okay, let's get this show on the road," Mr. Fisher said, grinning.  
Harry went to sit, but was immediately a uncomfortable, because of...  
"Here, dear, let me take that for you," Mrs. Fisher said. She reached across the table for the dark black scabbard that held the Sword of Gryffindor.  
Reluctantly, Harry unhooked the Sword from his shoulder, where it had blended so well with his dark clothing. He handed it across the table to Mrs. Fisher.  
When she realized what it was, Mrs. Fisher, as well as the rest of her family, found herself at a loss for words. "It's a very...uh...lovely sword, dear," Mrs. Fisher finally managed.  
Perhaps in an effort to move on from the awkward moment, Mrs. Fisher began dishing out the stew. Harry wasn't sure what he was going to do when it came time for him to eat it - he didn't know how well a vampire's digestive system, let alone his taste buds, would handle beef.  
"So, Jonathan," Mr. Fisher said. "I'm very anxious to hear your story."  
Harry had been expecting this moment, but he wasn't sure what to do, even given his time to consider it. He decided to stall. "I'm not sure where to begin," he said.  
"Are your parents in the city as well, dear?" Mrs. Fisher asked.  
"No," Harry said. "My parents are dead."  
"I'm sorry," Mrs. Fisher said, and she genuinely looked it.  
"Yeah," he said. "So am I."  
This was followed by even more awkward silence. Mr. Fisher made an attempt to break it. "If your parents aren't...um...in the picture, than who takes care of you, Jonathan?"  
"I take care of myself," Harry replied, truthfully.  
"Oh," Mr. Fisher said. This threw him a bit. He'd never met one of those street kids who professed the belief that they 'took care of themselves', but he'd heard the stories.  
"Where are you from, Jonathan?" Mrs. Fisher asked. "Not from around here, I bet."  
"No," Jonathan said, trying to figure out just how much to reveal. "I'm from England."  
"I see," Mr. Fisher said. "I have some friends in England. Which part? Liverpool? London?"  
"London, for the first part of my life," Harry said, wondering how he was going to explain Hogwarts. "Then, a boarding school for the last few years."  
"Oh, that's nice," Mrs. Fisher said, latching onto the only positive thing Harry had said so far. "Which school?"  
Harry began to use Uncle Vernon's old cover story, but stopped. "Er..." he said. "St. Brutus'...um...School for the Gifted."  
"How nice," Mrs. Fisher said.  
Diana remained silent throughout most of this, sneaking occasional looks at Harry, and blushing shortly thereafter. Harry stared down at the food in his bowl. He picked up a fork, speared some meat, and decided that there was no harm in trying.  
It turned out that he could eat the beef easily - there was no restriction on vampire digestion. It just didn't have the taste he'd remembered, like the taste was simply gone out of it.  
"Good, dear?" Mrs. Fisher asked.  
"Yes," Harry said, stretching the truth only a bit.  
The rest of the meal passed with some inane banter exchanged between members of the family. Mr. Fisher told them about the newest animal - a squirrel that had been doused in chlorine by some mean-spirited person. Mrs. Fisher described what turned out to be a typical, boring day in the office. And Diana told her parents that she'd passed her Natural History test.  
Harry couldn't help but be a little bored by the whole thing. Back in the old days, he'd have paid closer attention to the people who were helping him so much. Now, it didn't seem so much like help.  
When dinner was finished, Mr. Fisher took away the plates, announcing that it was his turn to was the dishes. Harry vaguely asked him if he wanted help, but Mr. Fisher turned him down.  
"Dolores will show you where you'll be sleeping," Mr. Fisher said, turning on the faucet at the kitchen sink and beginning what looked like a battle between himself and the dishes.  
"This way, dear," Mrs. Fisher said, indicating the door at the end of the long hallway. On the other side was a staircase.  
They ascended. Mrs. Fisher indicated the first door on their left as they left the stairwell. "That," she said, "is the bathroom. Here," she indicated the next door. "Is where you'll be sleeping. It's our guestroom - we keep it made up just in case Lawrence's parents come for a visit."  
She pushed open the door. "Will that be okay, Jonathan?" she asked.  
Harry looked inside. It was fairly average, as bedrooms go: fuzzy blue carpet, off-white wallpaper, a queen-sized bed, a nightstand, and a dresser.  
"Yes, it'll do," Harry said. He walked in and closed the door without any further comment. Outside, Mrs. Fisher shook her head. She didn't know what to make of that boy.  
  
Later that night, as Harry lay awake, looking at the ceiling and thinking about the past, he heard a noise. It was fairly faint, but with his heightened senses, Harry could detect it and classify it as the opening of a window.  
He got up off the bed and traveled over to his own window in time to see Diana Fisher climbing out of her window. She pressure-walked her way down the narrow space between the buildings, landing lightly on the ground and walking off.  
Before he realized what he was doing, Harry had opened the window and was climbing out of it. He didn't know why he felt compelled to follow Diana; protecting her, he supposed. Instead of duplicating Diana's pressure-walking stunt, Harry simply dropped to the ground. He made no noise.  
Diana proved simple to track. All Harry had to do was stay twenty feet or so back and keep her scent, and he was all set. Though he could follow her perfectly, Harry had no idea where it was she was going.  
After perhaps ten minutes, Diana turned off the road and into a small park. It wasn't so much a park as it was a random bunch of trees with a bench set back off the road; but Harry supposed that this was what passed for a park here in New York City.  
Diana surprised Harry a bit by speaking. "I knew you were following me," she said.  
"How could you tell?" Harry asked, dropping his pretense of hiding.  
"Sometimes I just know things," Diana said. "Its like there's this little wave of knowledge that comes sweeping into my brain, telling me things that I couldn't possibly know. Weird, huh?"  
"I don't think you know the half of what 'weird' is, Diana," Harry said.  
"Try me," Diana said, sitting on the bench and gazing up at Harry expectantly.  
"Excuse me?" Harry asked.  
"Try me," Diana repeated. "Tell me what 'weird' is."  
Harry saw the corner he was backing himself into and endeavored to avoid it. "You shouldn't be out here alone at night, you know," he said.  
"Don't change the subject," Diana said. "And I've got you to protect me, don't I?"  
Harry waited to see if she would say more, but instead she simply gazed expectantly at him. "I don't want to talk about it," Harry said, finally.  
"Okay, then I will," Diana said. "You're not quite what you seem to be, are you?"  
Harry gave her a hard stare. What the hell. He'd play her game. Worse case scenario was that he'd have to leave the Fishers'. "No, I'm not," he admitted.  
Diana took a deep breath, as though she were preparing to be laughed at. "You're...you're not really human, are you?" she asked.  
Harry's gaze hardened. "I'm not," he said.  
Diana let out her breath in a long, slow hiss. "What are you?" she asked.  
"I think its my turn to ask a question," he said. "How do you know that I'm not human?"  
"It was a hunch," she said. "One of those brain waves told me. I came out here to test the hunch."  
"You're psychic?" Harry asked.  
"I guess I am," Diana said. "I don't know where it came from, or why I have it. But every once in a while, I just know something that I can't possibly know."  
"Why are you sharing this with me?" Harry asked.  
"Cause you're like me," Diana said. "You're different. I've never shared this with anyone, and it's eating a hole in me. I needed someone who would understand. Do you?"  
Harry sighed. This girl needed help. He could provide that help. Probably. "I'm not human," Harry repeated. "My name isn't really Jonathan Weasley. My name is Harry Potter...and I'm a vampire."  
Diana's mouth fell open. "A vampire...? No way!"  
"Believe me, its not nearly as cool as people seem to think," Harry said.  
"Why all the subterfuge?" Diana asked.  
"Do expect me to tell everyone I meet that I would enjoy eating them for dinner?" Harry asked, rhetorically.  
"Well, no," Diana admitted. "But the name..."  
"Well, as to that," Harry said. "I've been trying to get away from a past life, and in that past life, I'm pretty famous..."  
Once the floodgates were open, they weren't shutting until the whole story, of Craig, Ginny, Voldemort, and the fight, was out.  
It was well past midnight by the time Harry and Diana ventured back into the Fisher apartment.  
  
Chapter Two! Yay! This one doesn't seem to be coming as smoothly as SASY did, so expect delays in the coming of the next chapter. It'll come - eventually. Tell you what - leave a review and it'll come faster! Peace out. 


	3. PART ONE, Chapter 3: Purpose

The next few days passed fairly quickly, for Harry. He mostly kept to his room, reading books left there by Mr. Fisher. Diana had agreed not to tell her parents anything about what happened between them the night of Harry's arrival.  
So it was that November became December. Thinking back, Harry realized that only a month had passed since his battle with Voldemort. It felt like years.  
When Diana got home from school, she came into Harry's room, the curtains all tightly drawn, and found him writing. She looked over his shoulder.  
"It feels as though I've been asleep for years," she read. "And they've awoken me."  
"I was lost," Harry said, simply. "You and your family found me."  
Diana laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Thanks. I always...we always will."  
She left, citing a need to change out of her school clothes. Harry wondered just what their relationship was becoming. That Diana needed him was apparent. He was her confidant. She was his. But she seemed to think that there was romance there, too.  
"I'll have to nip that one in the bud," Harry muttered.  
Harry picked up the black tinted glass on the side of the desk. It held a bit of pig's blood. Diana had shown him a convenient butcher's shop near their house, and he'd taken to frequent, sunset visits to the place to replenish his store of blood. When Diana returned, the skirt and collar of her Catholic school had been replaced with a pair of jeans and a loose t-shirt.  
"You want to go out and do something?" Diana asked.  
Harry raised an eyebrow and looked toward the window, where the sun was still glowing behind the thick curtain.  
"Right," Diana said. "No sun."  
"Not unless you want to walk around with a cinder for a friend," Harry said.  
"I've never had a vampire for a friend," Diana said. "It's so restricting."  
Harry glanced at the door. Diana picked up on it and smiled. "Don't worry," she said. "Mom's not home yet, and Dad is engrossed in paperwork. You could drop a bomb in the house and he probably wouldn't notice."  
"It's not that I don't trust your parents," Harry explained. "It's just that I don't think they'd understand. At least, not the way you do."  
All at once, Harry wondered whether he was the one with romantic feelings. A month away from Ginny...and already, this. Maybe their relationship wouldn't have lasted even if he'd stayed.  
Harry banished that thought at once. Relationship or not, Harry knew that being around Ginny and the rest would be too difficult for him to bear. He was better off here. Here with Diana, whose affectionate gaze seemed more and more appetizing to Harry every minute.  
Appetizing...? That was the vampire half. Had to keep a lid on that one.  
"Wow," Diana said.  
"What?" Harry asked.  
"Your face just went from shock, to understanding, to shock, and back to understanding, all in less than a minute."  
Harry's eyebrows raised. "I suppose it did," he said.  
"Want to explain it?" Diana asked, resting her head on top of her hands.  
"I think you've already heard the most of it," Harry said. "Just remember...I'm off limits as far as romance goes."  
Diana's smile faded. "Yeah," she said. "I understand. It doesn't seem fair, though."  
"No, its not fair," Harry agreed. "But that's the way it is."  
"It shouldn't be!" Diana burst out.  
Harry hadn't expected the outburst. "I know that," he said, trying to sound calming. "But we can't change the way things are."  
Diana calmed down in a hurry, though Harry doubted that it was his efforts that achieved the feet. "I guess that you're..." she began, but her eyes fluttered shut halfway through. "Oh," she said. Then her eyes opened. "Oh!" she said. She bolted.  
"Dad!" she yelled.  
Harry followed her, wondering what was going on. "Diana?" he called, but she was already down the staircase. Harry followed, moving quickly and quietly.  
Harry caught up to Diana in the study. Whatever she had wanted to say, she'd already said. "Are you sure?" Mr. Fisher asked. "Definitely," Diana said. "He'll be here in any minute!" "Oh, no," Mr. Fisher said. "Harry, I'm sorry, but you need to go, now!" "What?" Harry asked. "You need to go! You can't be here! Please!" Mr. Fisher said. "What's going on?" Harry asked. "Are you in some sort of trouble?" "Our landlord is coming for inspection! He...won't like it if he finds out that you're here," Mr. Fisher said. "Come now, quickly!" The doorbell rang. Mr. Fisher paled. "Think of a cover story!" he hissed at Diana. "I'll go along with it! Anything!" He left to get the door. Harry turned Diana around and studied her face. She was panicked. This was obvious to him. "What...?" he asked, confused over what, to him, seemed like a trivial matter. "I'll explain later. For now, you're a friend from school, and we're doing a project on...uh..." she eyed the Sword of Gryffindor, which was, as usual, strapped across Harry's back. "Medieval weaponry!" she said. Harry slipped the sword off his back. He laid it out on the table, and slipped it a bit out of the black sheath. As the door opened, he launched into a conversation over battle tactics with swords. Silently, he thanked Mad-Eye Moody for all the hours of training that had taught him so much about the sword. Fisher entered the room, his face going from a smiling mask to a look of pleading as soon as the man behind him could not see it. Diana's face brightened immediately. "Hello, Mr. Onde!" Diana said, smiling in what Harry could have sworn was perfect contentment. "I'd like you to meet Harry! He's my partner in history class! We're doing a project together!" "That's nice, Ms. Fisher," Onde said. He looked at Harry, and Harry discovered that his gaze was more mechanical than it was human. When Onde's gaze lingered on Harry's forehead, he became instantly uncomfortable. Onde had been about to leave the room when Harry had caught his attention. Instead, he moved forward to look at the Sword of Gryffindor, on the table. "Doing a project on the Middle Ages, are you?" he asked. Harry responded before Diana could over-act again. "Yes, we are," he said. "This is an old family heirloom." Onde examined the sword for a moment, then looked up. Once again, his mechanical stare bothered Harry deep down. "Very nice," he said. His voice lacked emotion. He left. After a few more minutes of what Harry supposed was inspection, Onde left. Mr. Fisher dragged himself back into the study, looking like he'd survived World War III. "Phew," he said. "That was close." "What was that all about?" Harry asked. "Our landlord, Mr. Onde, is very specific about what is allowed in his buildings," Diana explained. "We wouldn't live here if we could afford better," Mr. Fisher admitted, blushing a bit. "But on the income of a secretary and an obscure veterinarian...well, that's that. Excellent job, both of you. Where'd you get Harry from?" "Huh?" Harry said. "The name Harry," Mr. Fisher said. "It was a nice touch." "Oh, I suppose Jonathan just looks like a Harry to me," Diana said, pointedly. "Oh, that," Harry said. "Uh...yeah, nice touch..." Mr. Fisher wiped a considerable amount of sweat off his brow. "Well, you kids go back to whatever you were doing," he said. "I've still got work to finish." Diana left without comment. Harry followed her, intent on getting some answers. Diana passed Harry's room and entered her own. Harry entered it as well, and shut the door behind himself. "Explain," he said, simply. Diana sat down on her bed. She seemed hesitant, which scared Harry a bit; she was so open about everything else, so what about this required such secrecy? "It's a bit hard to explain..." she said. "It's just that Mr. Onde has been so kind to us, giving us a great deal on this apartment, and we don't want to do anything to upset him..." "The man's been really kind to you," Harry said. Diana nodded. "So naturally, you're deathly afraid of him. Diana, don't try to deny it! I can smell fear, and I was getting a pretty strong whiff when he was around." Diana hung her head in shame. "Whatever it is, you can tell me," Harry said. "I'm just so used to not mentioning it," Diana said. "It's true that Mr. Onde gave us a great deal on the apartment. But he has all these quirky rules. And when he evicts someone..." She stopped. "Okay, I'm going to tell you, but you have to realize that we have no way of proving that he was responsible. Whenever someone leaves his property, they end up dead." There was a pause as Harry absorbed that. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Everyone?" "Oh, we're not completely sure," Diana moaned, near tears. "Otherwise, we'd have gone to the police. But the last few neighbors we've had...the Moore's and John Ecklar, and Mr. Fox...they all left or were evicted, and they all ended up dead shortly thereafter. We wouldn't have found out about it if it wasn't for the fact that we had been friends. After them, we started keeping track. Unofficially, of course. There have been eight cases of families or individuals leaving and dying in the past two years." Harry breathed out slowly and sat down. "No chance that it's all an accident, a coincidence?" "That's the funny thing," Diana said, without mirth. "They've all been accidents. John's car had a freak break failure, and the Moore's burned to death when bad wiring caused a fire in their new home. And all of the accidents happened at night. I think Mr. Onde is a vampire." "No," Harry said, instantly. "He isn't." "How can you tell?" Diana asked. "Some super vampire power for detecting other vampires?" "Firstly, I'd be able to smell it if he were a vampire," Harry said. "Secondly, he just walked out into the sunlight." "Oh, yeah," Diana said, her shoulders slumping at the defeat of her suggestion. She perked up again in a moment. "But maybe he's got vampires who do his dirty work for him! It's perfect! They're the perfect hit men, since they're already dead and their prints wouldn't show up in a search and no one would have been in a position to rat them out..." "Don't forget to breathe," Harry said. "Right," Diana said, not really paying attention to this suggestion. "Okay, so he has vampires working for him..." "Woe, woe, we don't know that yet," Harry said. "Tell you what. Do you have an address for this guy?" "Dad has to drop off the payments for the apartment, yeah." "Well, then, you give me the address, and I'll go and check it out."  
  
At dinner that night, after Mrs. Fisher was filled in on the details of Mr. Onde's visit, Harry reiterated his plans. When he was done, Mr. Fisher breathed out. "Now, Jonathan," he said. "I know that you want to help, and we appreciate it, but we don't have any proof that Mr. Onde has ever done anything even remotely illegal." "So I'll go and find some proof, one way or the other," Harry said, cringing inwardly at the usage of his fake name. "Worse case scenario: Mr. Onde catches a kid breaking into his offices. I'll wear a mask so that he can't recognize me." "But Jonathan, he'll take off the mask, obviously," Mrs. Fisher said. "He won't get the chance," Harry said. "Anyway, I don't think they'll catch me. If they do get me, and I can't find anything, I'll disappear and you'll never see me again."  
Diana was about to protest when she felt a light kick from Harry under the table. Mrs. Fisher's protest went through, however. "But, Jonathan," she said. "I...I don't know what to say..."  
"I think that 'no' sums it up best," Mr. Fisher said. "Jonathan, this is...crazy!"  
"There's a possibility that your landlord is killing his tenants," Harry said. All three Fishers cringed. "I wouldn't mind knowing if he is."  
Mr. Fisher opened his mouth to protest, but Harry cut him off. "Whatever you say, I'm still doing this," Harry said. He rose from the table. "Thank you so much for your hospitality. You've all helped me more than you could imagine."  
Before any of the Fisher's could move to stop him, Harry was out the door, the Sword of Gryffindor weighing against his back.  
  
PHEW!! That one came out in about two hours. Pretty damn cool, no? As always, leave all your comments and criticisms and well wishes on the review board. I LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!!!! And face it, baby...you love to make me hear from you. Love ya, kid! Bye for now. 


	4. PART ONE, Chapter 4: Knowledge

I'm sorry about the formatting issues with last chapter. I'm not too terribly good with a computer, but I know my way around. Unfortunately, this formatting stuff seems to have me stumped. That big clump of text...oh, that was horrifying. Ugh. Well, lets hope that this one chappie looks better.  
  
Harry pulled out Onde's address from his pocket. Diana had gotten it for him from her father's desk. He looked it over. Of course, he had no idea where the address on the little sheet of paper was; he figured he'd solve the directional problem as he went along.  
His slowing down cost him. Diana had caught up to him. She was breathing hard. "Harry!" she gasped out. "Harry, would you wait?"  
Harry resumed walking, forcing Diana to catch up again. "I'm doing this, Diana," he said. "You're not going to talk me out of it."  
"I don't intend to," she said. "But how are you gonna find that place?" She indicated the piece of paper in Harry's hand.  
Harry looked down at it, then back at her. He stopped walking.  
"Aha!" Diana said. "I've got you!"  
"I could find it," Harry said, but uncertainty managed to creep into his voice.  
"No, you couldn't," Diana said. "But I can."  
Harry regarded her sternly. "Fine," he said, finally. "But as soon as we get there, you turn around and go home."  
"Okay," Diana said. "Follow me."  
She started off walking again, having caught her breath.  
"What do you plan on doing when we get there?" Diana asked.  
"Break in," replied Harry. "Probably do some digging."  
"What are you looking for?" Diana asked.  
Harry had to think about that. They rounded a corner in silence. "I don't know," Harry said. "I suppose I'll know when I find it, won't I?"  
"Some plan," Diana said. "Are you sure that this is smart?"  
"It probably isn't," Harry said. "The things that matter never have anything to do with 'smart'."  
"Gee, that's cynical," Diana said.  
"How so?" Harry asked, sincerely.  
"You're saying that intelligence isn't really worth anything," Diana said. "That's pretty cynical, considering that education is so much a part of our...my life."  
"Did I say intelligence?" Harry asked, rhetorically. "No, I didn't. I said 'smart'. When you have to make a decision, a hard decision, what's smart goes out the window, and what's right takes over. Being able to decipher the two takes intelligence."  
Diana considered that. "You're a complex person, you know that?" she asked.  
"I don't think so," Harry replied.  
They passed the rest of the time in silence. After perhaps five minutes, Diana announced that they had arrived. The building wasn't terribly large; it was only three stories tall, and about the size of your average corner grocery store. There was no visible security, and all the lights were out.  
"Okay," Harry said. "That's it. You head home."  
"Right, right, I'm doing it," Diana said. She turned, as though she were deeply annoyed with Harry, but stopped half way. "Good luck," she said.  
"Thanks," Harry said. "Go!"  
Harry waited until Diana was safely around the corner and out of sight before he began. Harry circled the building, looking for a weak spot. A cracked window, a door left partially ajar...nothing. It was a long shot, but he'd heard of stranger things.  
A second brain wave came to him. In the small patch of dirt in front of the building was a tree. From the ground, it looked to Harry as though the tree were at least as tall as the building. Harry climbed it quickly.  
Success! Harry could clearly see the roof of the building. It was perhaps fifteen feet away. An easy enough leap.  
Harry crouched and gathered all the strength he could into his legs. He didn't want to fall short. When he felt certain that he could jump to the moon if he so chose, Harry let it all go.  
It was a good thing that Harry was able to catch hold of a spare pipe on the roof, because otherwise he would have undoubtedly overshot. As it was, Harry's grip dug huge finger shaped holes into the pipe, and when he closed his hand, the pipe twisted into a copper and tin mess. Harry fell onto the roof, the force of his leap expended.  
He picked himself up and brushed himself off, making a mental note about jumping for future reference. The door on the roof was locked; however, the lock was getting extremely rusted, and it took nearly no effort for Harry to break it. The lock disposed of, Harry opened the door.  
Directly inside was a staircase, which lead, obviously, down. Harry took it, and found himself in a large room with bunches of cubicles. At the far end of the room was another staircase and a closed off office.  
Harry had to break a somewhat better lock in order to get into the closed office. On the other side of the door was small corridor. Harry instantly smelled something strange. He looked around and, finding the source, grinned broadly.  
"Heat sensors," he said. "How...lovely."  
Harry strolled into the corridor. Then he did a little dance. He smiled around at the heat sensors on the wall. It was a funny thing, really.  
Harry opened the next door and, finally, entered the office. At first, he was a bit surprised by its blank, sterile appearance. He got over the surprise in a hurry, though.  
Harry hurried over to the desk that sat in the center of the room. He opened up the long, deep drawer on the bottom of the desk, and found a row of files. He pulled out the first one and read the label.  
It said, "Project Cleanse".  
  
At exactly 7:32 that night, a phone call was made. The man who received the phone call was at first angry, though that subsided with time. In its place came cold, mechanical calm. It was best - it was more efficient - to keep a clear head on a matter of security.  
  
Harry opened up Project Cleanse's file and pulled out the papers. He began reading. What he found was, to say the least, horrifying. He didn't want to believe what he was reading. As the full impact of the file began to hit him, Harry realized that he may have sent Diana home to her death.  
  
At exactly 7:38 that night, a general alert at CLEANSE Headquarters was sounded. A security breach of large possible proportions was reported from a small filing section on the outskirts of Manhattan. Strike units were assembled from their cold sleep tanks immediately, given the proper magical drugs to wake them up in a hurry. By 7:40, the strike teams were ready to be deployed.  
  
Harry had to be sure of what he was reading. If there was any possibility that what he'd just read was a lie, or a trick, or some sort of really, really sick prank, he had to know...  
But of course, he knew that it had to be true. There was no way something like this could be made up. It simply couldn't be.  
Harry began to make plans. He knew that it was hopeless.  
  
At exactly 7:45 that night, Strike Team Omega arrived at the Brooke Street filing office. The team was given strict orders not to act until their commander arrived in the field. The team settled in and waited, watching the office to make sure that nothing left it.  
  
After about ten minutes of useless back and forth in his head, Harry heard a noise in the hall. He attuned all his senses to the sound. He got up and crept out of the office, past the clock reading 7:46, and into the heat sensor corridor.  
In the room of cubicles, Harry looked around for the source of the noise. He sniffed the air, and picked up something familiar. He heard the sound again - a sound which reminded him greatly of...  
"Diana?" Harry asked, seeing the girl there in front of him. "What...? How'd you get in?"  
"The front door was unlocked," Diana explained.  
"The front door...?" Harry said. "Oh, damn! We have to go, now!"  
Diana was alarmed by the fear she saw in Harry's face. "Harry, what's wrong? What did you find out?"  
"It's so much bigger than we thought," Harry said. "Diana, they're rounding up the poor and the, as they put it, 'inefficient'. They're going to slaughter all of them."  
"Low rent housing," Diana said, catching on immediately. "But why?"  
"They're societal perfectionists," Harry explained. "But why isn't really the question right now. Now, its more, 'how do we stop it?' Or maybe, 'how do we get out of here alive?'"  
"I made sure there was no one outside," Diana said. "We should be okay."  
"I doubt it," Harry said. "If a vampire didn't want you to find him, then you wouldn't."  
"You sure that isn't just pride talking?" Diana asked.  
"Stop joking around!" Harry said, harshly. "We have to be serious here, or we're both going to end up dead. And so will your parents."  
All semblances of humor left Diana's face. It got very pale instead. "Come on," she said, quietly. "Lets go."  
They were about to go when Diana's eyes fluttered. Harry caught the expression and the release of a hormone he couldn't decipher the smell of. "Diana?" he asked.  
Her eyes jerked open. "Watch out!" she shrieked, and buried herself against Harry.  
A second later, the world blew up around them.  
  
Harry picked himself up out of the wreckage of the building, discovering that the blast had thrown him into the street. Diana had lain underneath him, protected from the explosion and the debris. "Are you okay?" Harry asked her.  
"Yeah, I'll be fine," Diana said, though the numerous cuts covering her face and hands didn't look 'okay' to Harry. He'd have to take her word for it...for now.  
Harry stood strait to face his opposition. He could smell them; they were obviously human, but something was strange about them; something didn't quite click right. It was nice they were all sweating very little, but what sweat Harry could smell was very concentrated, and it contained wisps of things Harry had never smelled before.  
They advanced out of the smoke of the building to where Harry was, in the street. There were only five of them, but each carried what appeared to be a machine gun.  
"You are the intruder detected at this building at exactly 7:31 pm of this night?" one of the soldiers asked.  
"No, sorry, don't know what building you could be talking about," Harry said. "Me? I live in alley's."  
"You will come with us for questioning," the soldier said. "Failure to comply will result in your termination."  
"Since I'm not going to comply, I guess you're just going to have to be the terminator for tonight," Harry said, realizing the pun after he sai it. "Pretty clever, no?"  
"You were given fair warning," the soldier said. "More than you deserve. Fire."  
If Harry had been in the same place for another iota of a second, he'd have been filled with lead. Luckily, his vampiric reflexes carried him out of the way in time. However, a lone bullet ricocheted off a piece of jagged metal and struck him a glancing blow in the shoulder. It wasn't much of a hit, but it was enough to get Harry's face to morph.  
"A vampire?" the soldier who always spoke said. He pressed his hand to his ear, as though he was listening to something. Instructions, Harry decided. Good. If they couldn't react for themselves, then perhaps he would have a fighting chance.  
"Discard firearms," the soldier said, repeating whatever he was hearing. "Use control measures only. Bring in subject alive."  
"It's a bit late for that," Harry hissed.  
The soldiers rushed him. Two came at him from different angles. Harry threw a quick punch into the first soldier's face, and in the same motion, threw his weight backward and kicked the second soldier. Both went down.  
The next was a bit more cautious. He came in swinging a rod, which crackled with electricity. Harry sidestepped the swing, but didn't have enough time to counterattack. The soldier was fast. He swung again. Harry ducked the swing, and swept the soldier's feet out from under him. He went down.  
Harry balanced himself on the ground. Three soldiers were out. Two more were left. They'd taken the time provided by their fellows to get into position, one in front of Harry, the other behind. They charged.  
Harry leapt into the air, being careful not to overshoot, and stretched himself out flat in midair. He caught the front soldier's head with both hands, simultaneously landing with both feet on the shoulders of the back soldier, creating a bridge between them. Harry had barely enough time to see into the soldier's eyes, which were cold and dead, before he twisted. The force of the twist broke the soldier's neck, and turned Harry's body. The front soldier fell away. Harry began to fall, and as he did, he pivoted his torso. Just before connecting with the ground, he twisted violently with his legs, snapping the other soldier's neck, as well.  
Harry quickly made sure that all the soldiers were out of the fight, and then picked up Diana. She was able to walk, though only barely. Quickly, he headed towards the Fisher home, hoping that he wasn't too late.  
  
The commandant in the field watched as the vampire and the girl left in a hurry. Those of the strike team who had not already been killed would die for this - slowly, at that. They would have to speed up their plans. At exactly 7:52 pm, Mr. Onde began the final stage of Project Cleanse.  
  
So, what'd you think? I think I'm going to get right to work on the next chapter. It's going to be pretty good, I think, but I want to know what YOU think. In order to know what YOU think, YOU need to leave a REVIEW. PLEASE. It really does help. 


	5. PART ONE, Chapter 5: Escape

I AM SO SORRY THAT THIS TOOK SO LONG!!! I've been experiencing large family difficulties and needed some time without distraction, but now I think I need some time with distraction, so...story!  
  
As Harry hurried through New York, led by Diana, he wondered, horribly, whether or not any of the soldiers, or any security measures for that matter, had gotten a good look at Diana. If they had, then they were both probably walking into a trap.  
They were going to run into trouble again before the night was through. Of this, Harry was sure. How much trouble, though, still remained to be seen.  
Diana was limping. "Are you doing okay?" Harry asked.  
"I'll survive," she replied.  
Harry devoutly hoped so.  
It wasn't long before Harry smelled trouble. Literally. "Hold," he said, motioning for the limping Diana to halt.  
"What is it?" she asked.  
"Vampires," Harry said. He unslung the Sword of Gryffindor from his back. No surprise attacks this time. He was ready for it.  
The first vampire leapt out of an alley on their left. It wore a trim business suit, a bit tattered, and currently pulled tight as the vamp flew. Harry caught the ill thought out leap with his sword, and severed the vampire's head. It turned to dust.  
"Come on," Harry said. "We have to move faster, if they're tracking us."  
There were more around them. Harry was sure of it. However, telling Diana that wouldn't help her; it would only serve to panic her.  
"Harry, what happens when we get to my house?" Diana asked.  
"We get the hell out of this city," Harry said. "Find a retreat where they'd be least likely to look, and consider our next move from there."  
A minute later (Harry kept careful track of their vampire pursuers; they were keeping their distance, which worried him greatly), Diana spoke again. "I have a question," she said. "Why did Mr. Onde kill all those people who left?"  
"He's a perfectionist, don't forget," Harry said. "As soon as they were out of his apartments, they were no longer under his control. He couldn't let them get away."  
Diana paled. "He won't let us get away either, will he?"  
"Maybe not," Harry said. "Maybe I won't give him the chance."  
After another minute of walking, Harry had finally had it. He stopped and turned to Diana. Poor girl. She was getting winded. "Find some cover," he said. "We're not alone here."  
Diana paled. She hurried and settled herself as far back against a wall as she could. As soon as he was sure that Diana was out of harm's way, Harry entered the alley.  
"Come on, then," he said to the dark, misty alley. "Show yourselves."  
Slowly, four vampires immerged from the mist. The lead vampire addressed Harry: "We have no quarrel with you. Leave us the girl and we'll allow you to go."  
Harry though suddenly of it, leaving Diana and saving his own skin. But Diana and the Fisher's had given Harry a purpose in life...well, in death...and he had an obligation to them.  
"Sorry," Harry said. "Looks like you're stuck with me." Harry lunged forward.  
As he got closer, Harry became aware of the fact that the four vampires carried weapons. This wouldn't be as quick as he'd hoped, then. Oh, well. His vampiric side needed a good long fight, anyway.  
Harry slashed downward with the Sword of Gryffindor. The lead vampire threw up a battle axe to protect itself, turning aside the gleaming sword's blow. The vampire then slashed forward at Harry, but Harry sidestepped the blow and used the butt end of the hilt of his sword to drive the off-balance vampire forward. It sprawled forward, reeling from the force of the blow.  
The others attacked immediately. One of the vampires swung an enormous ball and chain at Harry, intending to remove his head. Harry did a split to avoid the blow and drove the Sword of Gryffindor up and forward, slicing into the vampire's neck. Blood spurted everywhere, covering Harry, but he had the presence of mind to cut sideways. Headless, the vampire turned to dust.  
Another vampire swung a short sword down towards Harry's head. Harry brought the Sword of Gryffindor up to block the blow, still in a split. The clash of metal on metal caused a shower of sparks that, in the dim light, was blinding. Harry stayed exactly like that, trying to hold back the vampire's sword, which it was pressing down slowly towards Harry's head.  
The final vampire saw its opportunity to strike. It raised its pike and charged. Harry saw the chance - the only chance - a moment before it came. His muscles reacted instantly to the need.  
As the vampire with the pike came in low to skewer Harry about the midsection, Harry twisted his body. At the same instant, using one of Craig's old capoiera moves, swung his legs out from under him. Harry ceased to hold the Sword of Gryffindor up against the other vampires' attack.  
The result was that the pike vampire missed Harry completely and was hit by the sword vampire's falling sword, removing pike vamp's head and dusting him. The vampire holding the sword was so surprised that he didn't even put up a defence as Harry came up off the ground with a big swipe of the Sword of Gryffindor, removing the vamp's head.  
Harry scanned the alley with his eyes and his nose. There was nothing else there. He turned and headed back to Diana. She looked up at him, and he could tell that she was enormously frightened.  
"We have to move faster," he said.  
She got up and they set off at an even faster pace then before. "Was that...was that all of them?" Diana asked, obviously afraid of the answer.  
"For now, yes," Harry said. "There aren't any more tracking us. But they must know where we're headed by now."  
"Is everything going to be okay, Harry?" Diana asked.  
Harry considered that for a moment. He decided that to answer would be too difficult. "Keep moving, Diana," he said.  
Her only reply was a whimper.  
  
Harry had begun to hope when they came within sight of the Fishers' home and he still couldn't smell any more vampires. Diana had certainly perked up. She was almost smiling.  
"We're going to do it," she whispered to herself. "We're going to -"  
She was cut off by the explosion of her home - and her parents.  
  
Two minutes later, the invasion of New York City by Onde's elite guard began. Those two minutes were inefficient, wasted...those responsible for the wasted time would have to pay. They would pay. All would pay...in time.  
  
"MOM!" Diana yelled, hysterically trying to shake free of Harry, who held her firmly from running to a sure death. "DAD!"  
"We have to go!" Harry said, burying his own grief in order to survive. "Diana, there are going to be more of Onde's agents here soon. We have to go now!"  
"But my mother," Diana whimpered. "My father...we have to get them before we go..."  
"They're dead, Diana," Harry said. "We will be too if we stick around."  
Diana's voice lowered to a whisper, and she stared at the burning building as though she wasn't really seeing it. "Mom, dad..." she muttered. She reached a hand out.  
Harry was in the process of deciding whether or not to pick her up and carry her out of the city when his senses alerted him to the approach of more people. That clinched it. Before she could figure out what was going on, Diana was in Harry's arms and was being whisked away, out of New York City.  
She never fought him, or did much of anything the rest of the night; mostly, she just reached out and murmured.  
  
By morning, New York City was in flames. Surprisingly, the incident was completely contained. The rest of the world never found out about Onde's revolution in New York. Two shadowy figures could be seen, walking the streets of New York the night after the incident. One looked to the other. They both knew that their target had been here, and that he had instigated this. They would find him. No matter the cost.  
  
Phew. G'night for now, folks. See ya' next time. 


	6. PART TWO, Chapter 1: Antithesis

Here begins Part two. Please be aware of the fact that two months have passed since the last chapter ended. Enjoy.  
  
Part 2 - The Unseen Tide  
  
Harry Potter stood at the edge of a forest looking down into the city. He checked his map. He was right on target - they'd arrived in Chicago.  
Diana came up behind him, appraising the town. "Two days," she said.  
"Maybe less," Harry replied. "Whoever it is that's chasing us seems to find us easier amongst people."  
"Maybe that's because you're not a person," Diana said, flatly.  
Harry felt like shaking her, but resisted. She'd been this way for two months now, since her parents' deaths. Two months of running from...well, whatever it was.  
As they descended on the city of Chicago, Harry reflected on their one - and thankfully, only - real confrontation with their pursuers.  
By that time, Harry had figured out that they were being followed. His sixth sense was screaming its head off at him. About a week after the New York City incident, their pursuers decided to catch up.  
They'd yelled through bullhorns at Harry and Diana to come out of the cabin they'd found with their hands up. Luckily, Harry had made sure that the cabin had a back door, and they'd escaped into the woods. Still, he'd sneaked one small whiff out the front, just to see what they were up against.  
The two figures, cloaked by shadow at the forest's edge, had no scent.  
Harry shivered. They'd been running from shadows ever since.  
By this time, Harry might have been tempted to stand his ground and fight. The only thing that kept him from that, besides the prospect of getting Diana hurt or killed, was that he had no idea what, exactly, he'd be fighting.  
Harry came back to reality quickly. In her present condition, Diana was next to no good as a lookout. Harry needed to stay alert.  
"Do you want to eat first, or find a place to stay first?" Harry asked.  
"Eat," Diana said. She still seemed far away.  
"Okay, then," Harry said. He scanned the prospects. Locating a possibility, Harry walked Diana towards the building.  
In their escape from New York, while the city was just beginning to burn, Harry had committed a small crime. He stole some money from a bank that was already on fire. The dollars were just going to burn anyway. That was how he reasoned it - to himself, anyway.  
Dinner cost them more than he'd imagined - he still wasn't used to the 'worthless' American dollar. He'd hoped that a comment like that might pull Diana out of her deep-seated misery...perhaps he'd lost touch with normal human emotion.  
After dinner, and Harry's unsuccessful attempts to get a rise out of Diana, the two went to a motel. It was a cheap motel; Harry wanted to make their cash last. After getting Diana into the room and making sure she would be okay, Harry left.  
Of course, the diner hadn't had any sort of food that Harry could sustain himself on. His first destination, then, was a butcher's shop. Maps of the city were abundant, and sure enough, Joe's Butchering was listed as being only two blocks away. As Harry walked towards it, hugging his coat close to himself despite the lack of cold, he noticed a newspaper dispenser on the side of the of the road. Harry approached it.  
Inside were several local papers, but amongst them was the New York Times. Harry glanced around to make sure that no one saw what he was doing, then broke the case. He removed a copy of the New York Times, tucked it under his arm, and hurried off.  
Twenty minutes later, he was back at the motel. Having assured himself that Diana was okay after her half hour of solitariness, Harry sat down at the table in the main room of their motel room. It basically consisted of a small table with a few non matching chairs, but it was enough.  
Harry poured himself a glass of blood, and began to read the paper. The front page headline read, in big bold letters, "Gang Wars in Inner City Cause Massive Devastation".  
"Gang wars," Harry muttered. "No way...how did they cover it up?"  
Harry skimmed the other articles. There was no mention of Onde anywhere.  
  
At exactly a little after noon, Onde stood up in front of a small group of people in a well lit, new age office meeting area. Though on that day, he attempted to explain why his actions ended the way they did, he couldn't. Onde never saw daylight again.  
  
"I can't believe that that slime ball got away," Harry said, to himself. "He couldn't have..."  
He looked through the paper again, trying to find any hint that the authorities knew that something other than gang warfare had caused all the damage to the city. There wasn't a thing. As far as they were concerned, angry teenagers from deprived homes had managed to burn down eighteen city blocks and cause serious damage to thirty-two more.  
Harry shook his head. Onde had some powerful people working for him, obviously...and he probably had some powerful people tracking Harry and Diana, since they held the key to exposing Onde.  
Harry folded up the paper again and put it in the trash. He didn't need to have Diana, in her catatonic state, notice that and melt away completely.  
Harry entered the room they were sharing and watched as Diana slept. Harry had been running through each twenty-four hour period on just three hours of sleep per day now since their escape from New York. Though his vampiric body could handle the strain for short periods of time, the prolonged lack of sleep was starting to wear on him. He figured that their pursuers wouldn't find them for at least another day - he could afford some sleep.  
Harry was about to curl up next to Diana on the bed when he noticed something sticking out of her pocket. He took a closer look, and wished afterwards that he hadn't. Of course, Diana probably was only carrying a stake for protection against other vampires.  
Harry chose to sleep on the couch that night. 


	7. PART TWO, Chapter 2: Surprise

Harry awoke with a start. Something wasn't right. He took a quick whiff of the air - nothing - and then scanned the room with his eyes. Nothing. Harry had the feeling that if his heart weren't technically dead, it would be racing.  
Harry climbed quickly off the couch. The Sword of Gryffindor was already strapped to his body, since he never slept with it far away. After checking the room over again, he decided to wake Diana.  
"Diana," Harry said, gently shaking her. "Come on, now, wake up..."  
Diana's eyes fluttered a bit. "What time is it?" she asked groggily.  
Harry glanced at the clock. "Three-thirty in the morning," he said, barely noticing his own exhaustion. That could wait.  
For a second, Diana seemed incredulous at being awakened at such an hour. Then, the emotion was gone off her face, and she was her usual passive self. "What's going on?" she asked, with the casual manner of someone running into friends at a pizza parlor.  
"I'm not sure," Harry said. "I think they've caught up again."  
Diana sighed heavily and got out of the bed. "Fine," she said, and walked towards the door. Harry followed her.  
"Fine?" he asked. "Fine. What is that?"  
"Four letter word, begins with "f" and ends with "e"." Diana replied, no emotion leaking through.  
Harry was getting annoyed by that point. "See here, Diana," he began. "We're in this for our lives -"  
She cut him off, whirling quickly to face him. The look of rage and fury on her face was scary. "Don't you think I know that?!" she shrieked at him. Grumblings arose from the other apartments they were walking past. "Don't you think I know that we both might end up like...like..."  
Her fury dissolved just as quickly as it came, and Diana finally broke down. She started sobbing, leaning against Harry for support. "I left them," she said, through the torrent of tears. "I could have been there with them, but I left them, and now they're dead, and I never said good-bye, I just left..."  
Harry stroked the back of Diana's head as she sobbed into his shoulder. "You had to leave them," he said. "You'd have died if you stayed."  
"I wanted to die with them!" she said, still sobbing.  
"Diana," Harry said, holding the young woman out to arms length. "You can't die yet. You are a wonderful person. You may not know it, but you have a lot to offer the world. I don't know about any deities in the world, or if there really is some master plan for us all, because frankly I've had enough of that in my life. What I do know is that you are still living, and while you're still living you can still do good things. You're good at that. You can still be good at that, if you live."  
Diana's crying began to lessen. She wiped the tears from her eyes, and then hugged Harry again, tighter then before.  
At that moment, Harry heard a series of car doors slamming. "Come on," he said, urgently. "I think our time is wearing down."  
Harry was distinctly aware of the danger they were probably in, but he was still relieved to feel Diana moving more of her own free will then his. It was a pleasant change - even if they were about to be slaughtered.  
Harry and Diana got through the front door of the hotel and came sprawling into the parking lot...only to find it swarming with dark creatures, non of which seemed to move like humans as they danced through the shadows.  
"Mr. Potter," came a voice from the shadow. Harry recognized it from the incident at the cabin. "If you come with us now, we'll spare you and your companion any harm."  
Harry planted himself firmly in front of Diana and drew the Sword of Gryffindor. "Why is it," he asked. "That everyone in this damn country seems to think I'll just give up if given the chance?"  
"Suit yourself," came the voice, cold and indifferent. A single form emerged from the shadows of the parking lot, yet Harry's senses told him that there were others. For now, he focused on this one.  
Harry had never seen anything quite like the creature that stood before him. It's hourglass shaped head possessed a mouth full of large, sharp teeth. It's right arm had what appeared to be a large sickle attached to it, and its left arm seemed more like a tentacle then an arm, with spiky protrusions at the end. It also had a tail that ended in a needle-like point.  
"You like it?" came a new voice. Another thing without a scent, Harry thought. "It's called a Gresnek. The poisonous tail was the first of its kind in this dimension. Its so funny how nature so often copies our ideas..."  
"Silence, you fool," came the first voice. "None of this banter is necessary."  
"Right, right," the second voice said. "Attack, then, Gresnek."  
The Gresnek charged Harry with surprising speed. Harry swung the Sword of Gryffindor at the thing in an overhead arc, but the Gresnek caught the blow on its sickle. The tentacle-like left arm came whipping at Harry, slashing him across the face.  
Harry reeled backward, the blow to his face both shocking and painful. He couldn't ever remember anything moving that fast. He barely had time to throw up the Sword to deflect a strike from the tail. The Gresnek took a swing at him with the sickle, but the thing was large and heavy and therefore slow.  
Good, Harry thought. At least he can't whip that thing at me.  
The next minute or so was spent in a constant parry-thrust exercise as Harry searched for a weakness to exploit. Harry was fast enough to block or avoid most blows except that left arm tentacle/whip thing, but luckily the Gresnek didn't use it often.  
Finally, the Gresnek made a mistake. It put its full weight into a forward swing with the sickle, attempting to bear Harry to the ground. Instead of blocking the slow but powerful blow, Harry sidestepped it and hit the creature two quick blows with the hilt of the Sword of Gryffindor.  
It was only then, behind the creature, that Harry saw the two tubes running from the Gresnek's back to its head. They seemed like arteries. Harry made a quick decision and sliced both open.  
The Gresnek uttered a soft, incomprehensible phrase before it fell over, clearly dead. Harry straightened up, grinning. What he heard next would chill him to the bones.  
"Harry?"  
It was Ginny's voice. 


	8. PART TWO, Chapter 3: Altercation

Harry didn't say anything. He didn't do anything. He didn't breath, though that wasn't anything new. One word - a name - echoed through his head.  
Ginny...  
Her small, slender form walked out of the shadows. Her voice, soft and soothing, came to him. "Harry...I know you've been through a lot...its over now..."  
She embraced him, slowly, tenderly. He could feel the incredible tenderness of having her close to him again, could feel himself spiral back to a time when the only thing in the world that mattered was the two of them, and...  
He brought the Sword of Gryffindor down, cleaving her neatly in two.  
"Next time," he said. "Make sure that your illusions have scent."  
The shadows emptied with a horrible shriek. Harry brought up the Sword. That had pissed him off. That had pissed him off a lot. And now he was going to get even.  
A slimy Plaetine demon took a swipe at him with its three-clawed hand. Harry caught the swipe on his sword, forcing the creature back so forcefully that it fell. Harry brought the Sword down on the thing so quickly that it didn't have time to yell before he'd separated its head from the rest of its body.  
A vernamium came running out of the shadows, swinging a huge broadsword at him. The damn sword must have been as tall as Harry.  
Harry took the blow on the blade of his own sword. The vernamium tried to use its strength to bare Harry to the ground, but Harry turned the blow slowly aside. As the creature's force was redirected downward, Harry spun, driving a forceful elbow into its head. He plunged the Sword of Gryffindor downwards, splintering the vernamium's spinal chord.  
A pair of vampires attacked him from behind. Harry, sensing their presence, leapt straight into the air, bellied out, and drove his legs backward, striking one vampire hard in the chest, driving it backward and Harry forward. Harry landed in a roll, bringing up the Sword to meet an attack from a Fyarl demon. The second vampire attacked as well.  
As the Fyarl swung at Harry, Harry ducked. He threw out a palm to redirect the vampire's kick, sending it backward. Harry drove his outstretched hand upward, upper cutting the vamp and sending it three feet in the air. In the same motion, Harry raised his leg and kicked the Fyarl, sending it sprawling.  
Harry oriented himself. Diana was still safe by the door, but a circle of demons was closing in on him. As the circle closed, Harry felt a brief tingling on the back of his neck.  
He grinned, remembering Craig's lessons on gravity.  
Harry wound up and threw the Sword of Gryffindor at one of the demons. The Sword penetrated the demon's chest, and it fell backward. As it fell, Harry charged it and leapt forward.  
As the Sword, still impaled in the demon, went vertical, Harry went horizontal. Gravity seemed to fade away, and Harry used the Sword's hilt to swing around in a circle. As he spun, hitting the Fyarl in its face, he twisted a bit and delivered a scissors kick to the vampire, twisting its head off. It fell in dust to the ground.  
Harry, still spinning in the gravity-less void he'd created, pulled the Sword of Gryffindor out of the dead demon. He continued to spin, rising a bit and swinging the Sword with him. His combatants had begun to experience the effects of Harry's magic, leaving the ground quickly and jerkily. Many died from Harry's swipes.  
In a split second, gravity returned. Harry landed on the ground, pressing his hand, still clutching the bloodied Sword of Gryffindor, to the ground. Around him fell the dismembered bodies of the demons.  
Harry's vampire face shown with lustful hunger. "Let's go, then," he said. "Come on! I'm going to kill you!"  
The two figures emerged, finally, from the shadows, allowing Harry to get his first good look a them.  
The first thing he noticed was that neither had eyelids, or eyelashes, or anything other than a pair of deep, blood red eyes. Their mouths were ovals filled with needle-like teeth.  
"We gave you the chance," the first of the two creatures said. "We really don't want to harm you."  
"I'd laugh if my sense of humor wasn't dead," Harry said, realizing the slight pun a minute too late.  
The other creature laughed. "Oh, that's funny! Damn, kid, you ought to be on Leno."  
"No thanks," Harry said. "We're just friends, Leno and I."  
The creature laughed again. "Are you always this funny?"  
"Only when I'm about to kill you," Harry replied, and swung the Sword of Gryffindor.  
So far, Harry had never swung at anything and missed. He'd been blocked; his blows had been redirected and misdirected; and his blows had sometimes done no good. But he'd never missed.  
The two creatures stood behind him now. The second chuckled.  
"Neat trick, huh?" it asked. "Wanna see another?"  
Harry didn't see it - the syringe was already draining its contents into his body, sedating him magically.  
  
When Harry awoke, he was in a small, all white cell. He shook his head.  
"Well, we can add sedatives to the list of the things I didn't know about vampires," he mused to himself. To his surprise, he heard Diana respond.  
"I'm sure it's an interesting read," she said.  
Harry smiled. That was close to Diana's old self. He got down to business quick, though. "Where are we?"  
Diana tried to lean around from her cell, but the invisible wall shocked her. She yelped, more out of surprise then pain, and then smiled sardonically. "No clue, but I bet they don't forget to pay their rent."  
"Let's hope they lost the electricity bill," Harry said, prodding his own electrical prison. "Hmm..."  
At that moment, a door at the end of what had to be a long corridor opened and shut. A cart was being pushed down it.  
"Diana!" Harry whispered. "I'm still asleep!"  
Diana whispered a fleeting affirmative. Her force field went down, and a small package was tossed to her. The field was back up practically before she knew what was happening.  
"Is the vamp still asleep?" one of the guys pushing the cart asked.  
"Looks it," the other said. "Come on, drop the field. We can give it to him now and he'll eat it later."  
As soon as Harry's field was down, he was up. He snapped the first cart-pusher's neck, grabbing the other quickly and placing a silencing hand over his mouth.  
"Sleeping vampire..." Harry muttered. "You are so dumb, you really do deserve to die."  
The cart-pusher whimpered. Harry applied pressure to the back of his neck, and he slumped forward, asleep.  
"Maybe not today, though," Harry said. He tossed the unconscious man into his own cell, dragged the cart and dead man into it as well, and then reactivated the field.  
As he let Diana out, she gave him something approaching a playful smile. "Naturally, you leave me for last."  
Her eyes rolled back into her head, and Diana stopped moving forward for a minute. Harry stopped too, sensing her own lack of movement, and turned to her.  
After a second, Diana slumped forward, breathing hard. "What did you see?" Harry asked, urgently.  
"Guards," she choked out, obviously distressed over something. "Harry...there's more..."  
The door snapped open. "Yep," Harry said. "Definitely more. You can wait in here." He shoved Diana back into her cell and reactivated it. "Where you're safe."  
The human guards charged Harry. He reached for the Sword of Gryffindor, to find that it was no longer attached to his belt.  
"Oh, lovely," he said to himself. "Looks like this goes down with some good old fashioned skin, huh boys?"  
Harry literally caught the first punch, crushing the man's hand. The man screamed, and Harry twisted the man's wrist, undoubtedly breaking it. The man was born to his knees, and Harry kicked him over.  
The remaining four men all came at him at once. Trusting to his magic and reflexes, Harry jumped.  
He ricocheted off one wall, punching a guard on the way to the other side of the corridor.  
He hit this wall and redirected himself up, clinging impossibly to the ceiling and scurrying along it. He fell from the ceiling, turning a small flip to face feet downward, reached out his feet, and performed a lightning fast leg scissors maneuver. The guard fell to the ground, and Harry rolled away.  
He came up blocking a punch. He sidestepped it and drove his right arm violently upward, breaking the guard's arm at the elbow. The guard cried out, and Harry stepped around him, kicking out his knees, and finally spinning, elbowing the pain racked guard in the back of the head, knocking him mercifully unconscious.  
The last guard charged him from across the corridor. Harry went low - very low - swiping the guard's legs out from under him. The moment in time seemed to freeze for Harry, as the guard hung poised in the air. Harry came up in the blink of an eye, hitting the near stationery guard with enormous force.  
The guard hit a force field and was continuously shocked by the electricity. The guard finally slumped, unconscious, and smoking a bit.  
Harry hurried to Diana's cell and deactivated it. She stepped out and promptly smacked him across the face.  
"Don't do that to me again!" Diana said. "I can defend myself!"  
"Jeez," Harry said. "I was only trying to help..."  
"I can help myself! Humph!" And she stalked away, towards the door.  
A demon in one of the other holding cells, who'd apparently been bored with the fight, laughed and pointed at Harry. Harry gave the demon an angry look, and it abruptly stopped laughing and pointing.  
"Diana! Wait!" Harry said, seeing her nearing the door. "We don't know what's out there!"  
"Oh, Harry, you can't always protect me," Diana said. "Besides, what are the odds that there is something right behind this door right now...?" As she said it, the door started to swing open.  
"You are such a jinx," Harry said, preparing himself for another fight. The door finished its slow opening arc, and Harry stood, dumbstruck once again.  
In the doorway, carrying the Sword of Gryffindor, stood Angel. "Welcome to Wolfram and Hart, Harry," he said. 


	9. PART THREE, Chapter 1: Thesis

"Angel?" Harry asked. "What...huh...?"  
"You know, I'm not surprised that you're reacting like this," Angel said. "My very stupid hired help was under the impression that they were to capture you. That wasn't really the case..."  
"Yeah, right," Harry snorted.  
"Really," Angel replied. "Come with me. Bring Diana. We'll talk this over."  
Harry wavered, a bit unsure. "Why should I trust you?" he asked.  
Angel looked as though he were about to shrug. Then he tossed the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry.  
"Follow me, Harry," Angel said, turning and walking slowly back through the door. Harry cast a nervous glance at Diana, who just shrugged. Harry shook his head. What the hell, he thought.  
He followed Angel up the stairs.  
  
"You?" Harry shouted. He'd lost it. "You?! You've been having us followed?!"  
"Calm down, Harry," Angel said. "Yes. We knew that you were in New York during the fires, and that you had some connection to Onde."  
"How'd you know that?" Harry asked, no less angry.  
"He's a client," Wesley said, shooting a meaningful glance at Angel. Angel ignored it.  
"Onde has been a client for years, but he's never disclosed his organization's whereabouts, or the extent of their operations, or...well...anything of value, really," Angel admitted. "That's where you come in."  
Harry couldn't come up with a retort. Was this guy serious?  
"We need someone with a link to Onde and his organization. You have that. We could use you."  
Angel and his team stared at Harry and Diana as though they expected them to respond. Harry's eyebrows raised. "And what are you going to use me for?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous. "Bare in mind that I do not like being used."  
Angel cleared his throat. He hated playing diplomat. "Harry, this could be our one chance to bring down this group. They're undeniably evil. Don't you want to help us?"  
Harry leaned over the table. The smile on his face was so far from nice it could easily have been classified as hostile. "You didn't answer my question."  
Angel glanced at his friends. He needed to take this plunge and just pray for the best.  
Well, hope for the best, anyway.  
"We want to use you as bait," he said. "Put you up in a hotel without Wolfram and Hart's protection, have you take walks in the park, whatever, and then, when they try to catch you, we follow them back to their compound."  
Harry nodded. "You are completely bonkers," he said.  
Angel's face fell a bit. "Then you won't help us?" he asked.  
Harry sighed. He glanced at Diana's face. She seemed to be trying to tell him something without saying it, but he couldn't make it out. "I didn't say that, did I?" Harry asked, rhetorically. Diana smiled. "Okay, we'll help you out."  
Angel brightened up, too. "Good. We begin tomorrow. Tonight, you can sleep here. You'll be safe."  
The members of Angel Investigations pushed their chairs back and stood. Harry noted instantly the looks of intense weariness in each face. Harry and Diana left with the rest, though Angel and Wesley stayed behind.  
Gunn was about to lead them to their quarters, but Harry held up a hand. "Curious as to what they're saying in there?" he asked.  
Gunn shrugged. "Sure, why not?" he said. "Angel and Wes have been keeping us out of the loop for months now."  
Harry pressed his ear to the thick, mahogany door. "...last straw, Angel."  
"What do you want to do, Wes?" Angel asked. "Give up Wolfram and Hart? Give it back to the bad guys?"  
"I'd rather not become the bad guy, thanks," Wesley responded. "What are we becoming? We help people like Onde...professionally!"  
"And then we do our best to bring them down!" Angel shouted back. Harry heard him hit the table. "Damn it, Wes! We're doing the best we can do here!"  
"Is it enough?" Wesley asked.  
Harry withdrew from the door. He glanced nervously at Diana and Gunn. He didn't know whether or not he should trust Angel. He didn't know whether or not he should trust Wolfram and Hart.  
Harry made a decision right then to be extra cautious.  
  
As Diana slept that night, Harry Potter stayed awake, swishing the Wolfram and Hart provided blood around in his cup. It tasted a bit funny. Like maybe it was otter.  
Harry turned the Sword of Gryffindor over in his left hand, admiring the blade. It was a truly remarkable weapon, and it had been in Harry's possession for several months now. He'd never really taken the time to just look at it, though.  
The jeweled hilt shown a bit in the dim light. The blade itself sparkled, smooth and perfect. The Sword was crafted nearly a thousand years before Harry had come to own it, but it was still in pristine condition. Amazing.  
Harry wanted to get in a few hours of sleep before the operation tomorrow. He wanted to get out of LA as soon as possible. The place gave him the creeps.  
Harry considered his next destination. Maybe now Diana would actually want to go somewhere, rather than passively consent to the course laid before her by Harry.  
Harry wondered. He took out a map and looked through it.  
Well, he thought, the Grand Canyon is close to here. I wonder...what is the Grand Canyon?  
Damn Americans and their grandiose names.  
Harry finally settled down for the night. He didn't nee to plan for that trip yet. He'd have enough trouble surviving the next day. 


	10. PART THREE, Chapter 2: Resolution

Nearing eight o'clock on the next night, the sun set. Harry Potter and Diana Fisher were standing around in a park shortly thereafter, waiting for whatever it was that was supposed to come and get them.  
Harry and Diana had both slept away most of the day, needing to build up a nice store of energy for the night's activities. Now, Harry turned to Diana. "Are you ready for this?" he asked.  
"Would it be too late to say 'no'?" Diana asked, and Harry smiled.  
"I'm serious," he said.  
"You don't look it," Diana teased.  
"Diana, we could die any second," Harry pointed out. "Aren't you in the slightest bit worried?"  
"Sure, I'm worried," Diana said. "I'm just not showing it."  
Harry gave Diana a skeptical look. "You always wear your emotions on your sleeve," he accused.  
"I do not!" Diana said, punching Harry's arm lightly."  
Harry would have retaliated, but he stopped. The hair on the back of his neck had just stood up, and it was staying that way.  
Harry quieted Diana. He glanced around - he couldn't see where Angel's men were, but he knew they were there - but it wasn't them. Something else was out there.  
"I think it's coming," Harry whispered, and Diana's smile disappeared.  
Neither of them felt the darts hit them in their backs, dropping them to the ground.  
  
A man in a tree watched a vampire and a girl fall to the ground. Good. This was supposed to happen. Everything according to plan. The man radioed back that the operation was commencing, and signaled to his other men to follow those now carrying off the unconscious bodies.  
  
Harry thrashed himself awake. He was so damn tired of being tranquilized. It was so humiliating.  
Harry quickly regained a measure of self-control, and his vampire features receded.  
"Welcome, vampire," a voice said, though Harry could not twist to see it; he was held firmly to the table by restraints.  
"Hello," Harry said, sarcastically. "I have a name, you know."  
"Yes, I suppose you do," the voice said. "I don't care."  
Harry almost laughed. The voice obviously belonged to a middle-aged man, but the tone was so juvenile that it was really laughable.  
"Okay, you don't care about my name," Harry said, repressing his laugher. "What do you care about?"  
"You have information," the voice said. "But you're worth more than your mouth, aren't you?"  
"Don't know what you're talking about," Harry said. "My mouth is worth a lot." He began to work at the restraints, testing their strengths and weaknesses.  
"You're a vampire with a soul," the voice said. "That makes you a commodity. And we wouldn't mind finding out what, exactly, glues your soul to that body of yours."  
A hand with a scalpel emerged into Harry's field of vision. Harry groaned as the small blade descended towards his chest.  
The scalpel, it's bearer still cloaked in darkness, made several quick, shallow incisions in Harry's chest. The cuts were painful, but Harry bit back any exclamations he might have had. Pain didn't matter so much, or so he told himself.  
Just as the scalpel was about to plunge deeper into Harry's now bleeding chest, he and the unseen "doctor" heard an alarm go off.  
Harry smiled.  
A second later, as Scalpel-Bearing-Immature-Doctor-Man was faltering, Angel burst open a door on the far side of the room. The doctor backed away, allowing Angel and his commandos to enter the room. From another door came more men - and the shooting began.  
Harry began to strain in earnest, attempting to break the bonds that held him to the table. A bullet ricocheted off his restraints, giving Harry an unexpected help. Harry quickly ripped through the rest of his restraints.  
He leapt to his feet, standing on top of the table. The pain in his chest was forgotten. Harry's vampire face reemerged, and he grinned in animalistic anticipation and blood lust.  
"Here!" Angel yelled, and threw something towards Harry. Harry caught it and got a grip on the shining Sword of Gryffindor. With a growl, he charged into the fight.  
Harry swept the Sword of Gryffindor in an arc, removing the head of an opposing guard, and splattering his blood in all directions. Harry took a second to lick some of the blood off his face.  
Tasty.  
Seeing a new threat, the other guards turned to face Harry, but he wasn't there anymore. Harry turned a quick, nearly effortless somersault over the guards to land behind Angel and his men.  
"Fancy meeting you here," Harry said.  
"Likewise," Angel said. "The bug worked; we've got their data. We're planting a virus in their central computer system that should take out the other bases across the nation."  
"Where's Diana?" Harry asked.  
"We're looking," Angel said, looking a bit grim. "We still haven't secured most of the building. You're pretty close to the outer walls."  
The gunfire finally died. So had most of the opposition.  
"Pity there aren't more," Harry said, surveying the carnage.  
Loud footfalls announced the arrival of 'more'. "Good," Harry said. He and Angel, followed by those of the Wolfram and Hart strike force that remained, dove in.  
Keeping Angel on his right, Harry thrust the Sword of Gryffindor straight forward, impaling one of the charging guards. It took Harry a second to register the fact that none of these new guards carried guns, and then another second to register that all of them carried wooden stakes.  
"Guess that we're the guests of honor," Harry yelled, violently yanking his sword out of the dead guard.  
The corridor was narrow, and none of Angel's men could fit up to help their leader or Harry. A guard with a sword came up to challenge Harry. He swung his sword in an overhead arc that Harry caught easily with his own blade, turning it aside and thrusting upwards to gut the guard.  
This maneuver left Harry open, and another guard charge in, ready to stake Harry, and Harry, with his sword inside another guard, was defenseless...  
Angle stepped in and drove his own sword through the offending guard's neck, effectively severing his head but for a little bit.  
Harry looked up and nodded at Angel, acknowledging the fact that the older vampire had just saved his un-life.  
Harry and Angel coordinated themselves from then on, keeping the other's movements in mind when making a move. Angel drove his sword into and through the gut of an offending guard, and Harry blocked the downward thrust of another coming from Angel's right. Angel ripped his sword free, dropping the now dead guard backwards, and Harry thrust the Sword of Gryffindor forward, throwing the guard into the crowd pressing forward to attack.  
Harry looked to Angel, and Angel, understanding, put his hands together. Harry leapt and stood on Angel's hands, and Angel spring-boarded him forward into the crowd of guards. Harry turned a somersault in the air, caught a guard's head between his legs, and rolled down onto the floor, keeping hold of the guards' head and throwing him violently, scattering the guards in that part of the corridor.  
Harry was now partially surrounded by guards. He thrust quickly into one, ripping apart the guard's abdomen, and withdrew the Sword of Gryffindor, spinning it to strike behind himself. As Harry drove the Sword behind him, he kicked to the left. When he felt the Sword connect and rip threw flesh, Harry twisted, ducking his head and spinning in a deadly circle, cutting all the guards in his vicinity to ribbons.  
Harry stopped his death spiral facing the remaining guards. They looked at him, covered in blood, staring unsatisfied lust to drain the blood from their still-living bodies, and looked at the sliced up remains of their fellows.  
"Come on then, gents," Harry said, his eyes bugging out from the primal pleasure of the kill and his desire to feed. The yellow there seemed to deepen. "Free hair cuts, quite a deal." He rose and began advancing towards them, unblinking. "Of course, I tend to cut a bit below the hair..."  
The remaining guards bolted and ran, screaming like children.  
Harry turned back to Angel. "Too bad," Harry said.  
To Harry's surprise, Angel came up and put a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Get a handle on that rage," he warned. "If you let it take over too much...well, you don't want that to happen."  
Harry stared at Angel for a moment, trying hard to figure out what the older vampire was talking about. Then it clicked. Harry's vampire face receded, returning his normal human features.  
"Phew," Harry said. "I didn't know..."  
"Your first massacre," Angel said. "You've never lost control before. It's understandable. But now really isn't the time for this."  
"Right," Harry said. "Let's go find Diana."  
"And then get the hell out of here," Angel added.  
  
Harry and Angel rushed through the building, Angel occasionally checking with his other units to find out how well they were doing. They were meeting fierce resistance in several of the underground levels, and the topmost level.  
"Come on," Angel said. "We're headed for the top."  
They took an elevator quickly to the top floor. Angel briefed Harry quickly on what they already knew. "This floor opens directly onto the helipad. If we hurry, we'll catch the head honchos before they take off and our choppers have to hunt them down."  
The elevator door clicked open to gunfire. The two Wolfram and Hart commandos with Angel were both hit, and Harry took a glancing below to his arm that ripped his shirt. Harry and Angel both flattened themselves against the walls of the elevator, out of the line of sight of the gunmen.  
"Bullets can't kill us, can they?" Harry asked.  
"No, but they can hurt like hell," Angel replied.  
"Screw pain," Harry said, and ducked back out. The gunfire quickly resumed. The first two shots were wild, no where near Harry, but the third came directly for his face. Harry slashed upward with the Sword of Gryffindor, entirely by reflex, and the bullet was deflected harmlessly away. Harry brought the Sword to a halt.  
The shining blade remained flawless.  
Seeing this, Angel circled out as well, and tried deflecting the first shot that came his way with his own sword. The bullet shattered the blade, though it didn't hit Angel.  
"Magical sword," Harry said shortly.  
"Lucky bastard," Angel replied.  
They charged the guards, who didn't think or move quickly enough to avoid the attack. All three dropped fast.  
"That way," Angel said, pointing. As he said it, three men came hurrying into view, though the face of only one was visible. Harry did a double-take.  
"Onde!" he yelled.  
"The entity you knew as Onde is dead," replied the man who appeared to be Onde. The other two emerged - the three were identical. "This shape is the most optimal."  
Harry considered cutting each down, but stopped himself. He turned to Angel. "What do we do?" he asked.  
"Who are you?" Angel asked.  
"Do you really expect us to tell you that?" Clone 1 replied.  
Angel gave Harry a quick glance. Both of their faces transformed, their fangs sharpening before the eyes of the three Onde look-alikes.  
As they faltered, fear coming to those eyes for the first time Harry could remember, Angel's communication device beeped. "Go ahead," Angel said, his voice a bit distorted by his fangs.  
"Sir, we've secured the building," came the voice from the little box. "No one got out."  
"Good job, captain," Angel said. "Stand by and await further orders."  
"Yes, sir," the captain responded.  
Angel returned his attention to the three Onde clones. "You've lost," he said, simply. "We have taken complete control of this facility, and at this time, all your other installations around this country and the world are being disabled and destroyed. Give up."  
The three looked at each other, considering. Then, each reached back, and touched something in his upper back. They fell to the floor, lifeless, instantly.  
Harry walked over and prodded a body, sniffing. "Guess that means they give up?" he inquired.  
Angel's communication device beeped again. "I thought I told you to await further orders," Angel said in slight annoyance, his face returning to normal.  
"Yes, sir, you did, sir," the captain's cautious voice said. "But I have a young lady here who is insisting on talking to you and Mr. Potter."  
"Diana?" Harry yelled, not sure if the device would pick up his voice.  
"It's me," Diana said, sounding a bit shaken.   
"Are you okay?" Harry asked, taking the device from a smiling Angel.  
"Yeah, I'm peachy," Diana responded, the slightest bit of tease showing through the fog of her obvious fright.  
"Really," Harry said.  
"Really," Diana repeated. "He's dead, isn't he?"  
Harry didn't have to inquire as to whom she meant. He glanced down at the three dead clones and recalled their words.  
"Yeah," he said. "He is."  
Harry could practically hear her smile.  
  
Later, Harry sat at the Wolfram and Hart conference table with Angel, Diana, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, and Lorne. Angel was talking.  
"We can set you up with accommodations wherever you're off to next," Angel said. "We have connections in every city in this country, and most in Europe. Wherever you're going, we can help you get there and live quietly and comfortably when you get there."  
Harry glanced at Diana, who smiled an encouragement at him. "Actually," Harry said, fumbling his words a bit for the first time in months. "I was wondering...I mean to say, we were wondering...wondering if maybe, if it's not too much of an inconvenience...maybe we could stay here?"   
Angel slowly smiled at Harry. "Why the change of heart? I thought you didn't trust us."  
Harry was about to respond when something occurred to him. "Hang on," he said. "How did you know that?"  
Angel sighed. "Harry, I wanted you to know what you were getting into here. Do you really think that we don't have enough security here to keep people from pressing their ears to doors?"  
Harry was instantly angry. "So you played with me...again," he accused.  
"No," Angel said. "I arranged for you to be able to hear the truth." Wes looked more than a bit sheepish at this. "Would you have been as cautious if I'd just come out and told you that this place was manipulating us?"  
Harry got a handle on his anger. "Probably not," he said. "It doesn't affect my decision. I have just one term, though."  
Everyone looked apprehensive.  
"If you're planning on having me fall in love with a girl to save the world...let me know first, okay?" he asked.  
Angel smiled. "Deal," he said, and they shook hands.  
  
THE END  
  
Well, there it is. This one wasn't nearly as long as I'd originally thought it might be, but oh freaking well. You can expect Hell Soul, the next sequel, to begin in a week or two. Oh, and watch for other stuff - I'll be updating my profile page to include my latest projects and ideas. Coolness. One last thing, before Sword of Gryffindor is really over and the space runs out. BUNKER SHORTS!!!! -[LJL]- 


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